UPDATE 1-US judge in Texas rules congressional passage of 2022 spending bill unconstitutional

A federal judge in Texas on Tuesday ruled that a $1.7 trillion government funding bill was unconstitutionally passed in 2022 through a pandemic-era rule that allowed lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote by proxy rather than in person. U.S. District Judge James Wesley Hendrix in Lubbock reached that conclusion as he granted Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's request to block a provision of that bill that gave pregnant workers stronger legal protections. The judge, an appointee of Republican former President Donald Trump, called the scope of his ruling "limited," and said it did not block all of the spending law.